Like maybe—just maybe—she’s holding hers too.
Chapter Twenty-Six
COVE
I don’t knowwhat this means.
The words sit in my drafts for twenty-three minutes. My thumbs keep hovering, backspacing, retyping. I type“I miss you”once. Delete it.
I type“Do you hate me?”Delete that, too.
There’s no script for this. No guide for how to be in love with someone you’re not supposed to be in love with.
But I’m tired of being haunted by him. By us.
So I stop trying to be eloquent and just hit send.
Me: Come over. I don’t know what this means. But I need to see you.
I stare at the message until it delivers. Until the read receipt pops up.
He replies instantly.
Everest: On my way.
And just like that, I start to tremble. Not because I’m scared of him. Not even because I’m scared of us.
But because I’ve spent days trying to convince myself that I’m over it. What happened was a mistake, a fever dream, a twisted cosmic joke. I’ve cried. I’ve screamed. I’ve tried to scrub him off my skin and out of my thoughts. But now he’s on his way here, and I realize something awful and beautiful at once:
I miss him more than I thought humanly possible.
And worse—I still want him.
My body remembers him like muscle memory. The shape of his mouth. The weight of his hand on my hip. The sound of his laugh, low and sleepy in the morning. The press of his body against mine like we were made to fit.
I don’t pace while I wait for him.
I fold towels, rearrange a drawer, and breathe through the tightness in my chest that won’t go away. I change shirts twice, finally settling on the one I wore the first time he came over.
When the knock comes, my lungs forget how to work. I open the door slowly. And there he is.
Everest.
He looks the same but worse. His hair’s messy. There’s a tiredness under his eyes I’ve never seen before.
“Hi,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
He swallows hard. “Hi.”
We don’t hug. We don’t even smile.
I step back to let him in. The air is thick with the words we’re not saying. He walks into my place like it’s foreign and he’s not sure he’s allowed to be here anymore.
He sits on the far end of the couch while I sit on the opposite side. A whole ocean of space between us. And still, I can feel him. Like gravity pulling at my spine.
He exhales slowly. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Me either.”
